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History of anatomyFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Maya bustThe development of anatomy as a science extends from the earliest examinations of sacrificial victims to the sophisticatedanalyses of the body performed by modern scientists. It has been characterized, over time, by a continually developingunderstanding of the functions of organs and structures in the body. The field of Human Anatomy has a prestigious history, andis considered to be the most prominent of the biological sciences of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Methods have alsoimproved dramatically, advancing from examination of animals through dissection of cadavers to technologically complextechniques developed in the 20th century.[1]

Anatomy is one of the cornerstones of a doctors medical education. Despite being a persistent portion of teaching from at leastthe renaissance, the format and the amount of information being taught has evolved and changed along with the demands of theprofession. What is being taught today may differ in content significantly from the past but the methods used to teach this have

not really changed that much. For example all the famous public dissections of the Middle Ages and early renaissance were infact prosections. Prosection is the direction in which many current medical schools are heading in order to aid the teaching ofanatomy and some argue that dissection is better. However looking at results of post graduate exams, medical schools(specifically Birmingham) that use prosection as opposed to dissection do very well in these examinations.[2] This would suggestthat prosection can fit very well into the structure of modern medical training.Contents [hide]1 Ancient anatomy1.1 Egypt1.2 Greece1.3 Galen2 Tibet3 Early modern anatomy3.1 17th and 18th centuries

4 19th century anatomy5 Modern anatomy6 Conclusion7 Notes8 Bibliography9 External links[edit]Ancient anatomy

[edit]EgyptThe study of anatomy begins at least as early as 1600 BCE, the date of the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus. This treatise showsthat the heart, its vessels, liver, spleen, kidneys, hypothalamus, uterus and bladder were recognized, and that the blood vesselswere known to emanate from the heart. Other vessels are described, some carrying air, some mucus, and two to the right earare said to carry the "breath of life", while two to the left ear the "breath of death". The Ebers papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) features a

treatise on the heart. It notes that the heart is the center of the blood supply, with vessels attached for every member of the body.The Egyptians seem to have known little about the function of the kidneys and made the heart the meeting point of a number ofvessels which carried all the fluids of the body blood, tears, urine and sperm, but the fluid of saliva and sweat they did not knowwhere that came from.[3][edit]GreeceThe earliest medical scientist of whose works any great part survives today is Hippocrates, a Greek physician active in the late5th and early 4th centuries BCE (460 - 377 BCE). His work demonstrates a basic understanding of musculoskeletal structure,and the beginnings of understanding of the function of certain organs, such as the kidneys. Much of his work, however, andmuch of that of his students and followers later, relies on speculation rather than empirical observation of the body. One of thegreatest achievements of Hippocrates was that he was the first to discover the tricuspid valve of the heart and its function which


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he documented in the treatise On the Heart in the Hippocratic Corpus. Later anatomists knew the function of the tricuspid valveafter reading the Hippocratic Corpus.In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle and several contemporaries produced a more empirically founded system, based animaldissection. Around this time, Praxagoras is credited as the first to identify the difference between arteries and veins, and therelations between organs are described more accurately than in previous works.The first use of human cadavers for anatomical research occurred later in the 4th century BCE when Herophilos and Erasistratusgained permission to perform live dissections, or vivisection, on criminals in Alexandria under the auspices of the Ptolemaicdynasty. Herophilos in particular developed a body of anatomical knowledge much more informed by the actual structure of thehuman body than previous works had been.[edit]GalenThe final major anatomist of ancient times was Galen, active in the 2nd century. He compiled much of the knowledge obtained byprevious writers, and furthered the inquiry into the function of organs by performing vivisection on animals. Due to a lack ofreadily available human specimens, discoveries through animal dissection were broadly applied to human anatomy as well. Hiscollection of drawings, based mostly on dog anatomy, became the anatomy textbook for 1500 years. The original text is longgone, and his work was only known to the Renaissance doctors through the careful custody of Arabic medicine.[edit]Tibet

Seventeenth-century Tibet witnessed a blossoming of medical knowledge.[4][edit]Early modern anatomy

In this 1559 anatomical plate by Juan Valverde de Amusco, a figure holds a knife in one hand and his own skin in the other.The works of Galen and Avicenna, especially The Canon of Medicine which incorporated the teachings of both, were translatedinto Latin, and the Canon remained the most authoritative text on anatomy in European medical education until the 16th century.The first major development in anatomy in Christian Europe, since the fall of Rome, occurred at Bologna in the 14th to 16thcenturies, where a series of authors dissected cadavers and contributed to the accurate description of organs and theidentification of their functions. Prominent among these anatomists were Mondino de Liuzzi and Alessandro Achillini.The first challenges to the Galenic doctrine in Europe occurred in the 16th century. Thanks to the printing press, all over Europea collective effort proceeded to circulate the works of Galen and Avicenna, and later publish criticisms on their works. Vesaliuswas the first to publish a treatise, De humanicorporisfabrica, that challenged Galen "drawing for drawing" travelling all the wayfrom Leuven[5] to Padua for permission to dissect victims from the gallows without fear of persecution. His drawings aretriumphant descriptions of the, sometimes major, discrepancies between dogs and humans, showing superb drawing ability.

Many later anatomists challenged Galen in their texts, though Galen reigned supreme for another century.A succession of researchers proceeded to refine the body of anatomical knowledge, giving their names to a number ofanatomical structures along the way. The 16th and 17th centuries also witnessed significant advances in the understanding ofthe circulatory system, as the purpose of valves in veins was identified, the left-to-right ventricle flow of blood through thecirculatory system was described, and the hepatic veins were identified as a separate portion of the circulatory system. Thelymphatic system was also identified as a separate system at this time.[edit]17th and 18th centuries

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. NicolaesTulp, by Rembrandt, depicts an autopsy.The study of anatomy flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries. The advent of the printing press facilitated the exchange ofideas. Because the study of anatomy concerned observation and drawings, the popularity of the anatomist was equal to thequality of his drawing talents, and one need not be an expert in Latin to take part. [1] Many famous artists studied anatomy,attended dissections, and published drawings for money, from Michelangelo to Rembrandt. For the first time, prominentuniversities could teach something about anatomy through drawings, rather than relying on knowledge of Latin. Contrary topopular belief, the Church neither objected to nor obstructed anatomical research.[6] The increase in demand for cadavers,though, led to rumors about anatomy murder.Only certified anatomists were allowed to perform dissections, and sometimes then only yearly. These dissections weresponsored by the city councilors and often charged an admission fee, rather like a circus act for scholars. Many European cities,such as Amsterdam, London, Copenhagen, Padua, and Paris, all had Royal anatomists (or some such office) tied to localgovernment. Indeed, NicolaesTulp was Mayor of Amsterdam for three terms. Though it was a risky business to performdissections, and unpredictable depending on the availability of fresh bodies, attending dissections was perfectly legal. Manyanatomy students traveled around Europe from dissection to dissection during the course of their study - they had to go where a


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fresh body was available (e.g. after a hanging) because before refrigeration, a body would decay rapidly and become unsuitablefor examination.Many Europeans interested in the study of anatomy traveled to Italy, then the center of anatomy. Only in Italy could certainimportant research methods be used, such as dissections on women. M. R. Columbus and Gabriele Falloppio were pupils ofVesalius, the 16th century anatomist. Columbus, as his immediate successor in Padua, and afterwards professor at Rome,distinguished himself by rectifying and improving the anatomy of the bones, by giving correct accounts of the shape and cavitiesof the heart, of the pulmonary artery and aorta and their valves, and tracing the course of the blood from the right to the left sideof the heart, by a good description of the brain and its vessels, and by correct understanding of the internal ear, and the firstgood account of the ventricles of the larynx. Osteology at nearly the same time found an assiduous cultivator in GiovanniFilippoIngrassias.[edit]19th century anatomy

Further information: History of anatomy in the 19th century

A plate of the skull from the 1918 edition of Gray's AnatomyDuring the 19th century, anatomists largely finalised and systematised the descriptive human anatomy of the previous century.The discipline also progressed to establish growing sources of knowledge in histology and developmental biology, not only ofhumans but also of animals. Extensive research was conducted in more areas of anatomy. Great Britain was particularlyimportant in this research: demand for cadavers grew so great there that body-snatching and even anatomy murder came into

use as a means of obtaining them.[7] In response, the English Parliament passed the Anatomy Act 1832, which finally providedfor an adequate and legitimate supply of corpses by allowing dissection of destitutes. The relaxed restrictions on dissectionprovided a suitable environment for Gray's Anatomy, a text that was a collective effort and became widely popular. Now seen asunwieldy, Gray's Anatomy was born out of a need to create a single volume on anatomy for the traveling doctor.The shift from the largely public displays of dissection in anatomy theatres to dissections carried out in classrooms meant thatthere was a drastic change in who could observe a dissection. Females for example, who at this time were not allowed to attendmedical school, could broaden their knowledge by attending the anatomy theatres. So the shift from prosection to dissectionmeant a reduction in the number of people that could benefit from a single cadaver. At this point as well tighter regulation of themedical profession and donations of bodies resulted in various implications for carrying out dissections. Private medical schoolswhich offered summer schools and various other courses involving cadaveric dissection allowed one route into gainingmembership to the Royal College of Surgeons. However from 1822 the Royal College of surgeons would no longer accept thesequalifications, this as result would see these largely unregulated schools begin to close.[8] Not only as a result of this, but the

Anatomy Act 1832 made it much harder (more bureaucracy) to obtain bodies for dissection. The act resulted in only the large

teaching hospitals feasibly being able to continue teaching anatomy courses due to agreements with patients that if they donatedtheir body they would receive free treatment. So towards the end of 19th century anatomy courses had been largelyprofessionalised at established medical schools and public dissection was no longer common place.

Another source of anatomy teaching began with the foundation of many medical schools (particularly within the provincialmedical schools) and the medical museums found within them. A large portion of training occurred within these up until and forsome time after the Second World War. The medical museum was very important and a lot of effort was put into creatingsomething impressive. This was particularly so in provincial medical schools which were just being established that neededcredibility not only from other medical schools (namely Oxford and the London teaching hospitals) but also from the public. Themuseums were not only for students but also members of the public paid to see the exhibits within the museum. This brought notonly much needed income but prestige as well.[9] The more exhibits within the museum the more established the medical schoolappeared to be (at least to the public). Significant amounts of teaching occurred in the museum as well with students claimingthey learnt far more in the museum than they ever did in the lecture theatre. The decline of the museums within medical schoolswas largely due to the demand in floor space for teaching and new disciplines and less importantly the great improvements inphotography and colour texts. For example the museum at Birmingham Medical School is now a computer cluster and teachingrooms, the only remains of the museum are the preserved specimens decorating the walls around the computer cluster.[edit]Modern anatomy

Anatomical research in the past hundred years has taken advantage of technological developments and growing understandingof sciences such as evolutionary and molecular biology to create a thorough understanding of the body's organs and structures.Disciplines such as endocrinology have explained the purpose of glands that anatomists previously could not explain; medicaldevices such as MRI machines and CAT scanners have enabled researchers to study the organs of living people or of deadones. Progress today in anatomy is centered in the development, evolution, and function of anatomical features, as themacroscopic aspects of human anatomy have been largely catalogued. The subfield of non-human anatomy is particularly active


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as modern anatomists seek to understand basic organizing principles of anatomy through the use of advanced techniquesranging from finite element analysis to molecular biology.With increasing demands on the healthcare system and what could be deemed chronic under-training of doctors (numbers ofdoctors per capita compared to other industrialised countries) during the latter half of the 20th century, medical schools are nowfacing massive pressure to train as many doctors as possible. This has meant in recent years cohort sizes have doubled andmore in size, to try to meet the demand. This has resulted in increased pressure of the facilities at all medical schools in thecountry. Anatomy is one department in particular that has had to evolve to accommodate the number of students. At Birminghamdissection was once essential to the teaching of anatomy but since the end of the 1980s the medical school has adoptedprosection over dissection. At the time new directives from the General Medical Council (GMC) on the direction medicaleducation was the major factor according the current head of anatomy. There are also many other reasons whyprosectionmaybefavoured (discussed below). It has probably now become near impossible to restart dissection at Birminghameven if one wanted to. This is due to the fact that current prosection uses a very similar number of cadavers as dissectionpreviously did. If dissection was to be brought back the number of cadavers would be very large due the current cohort size. Toincrease provision of prosection the medical school is currently investing in the region of 800,000-900,000 on a newprosectorium. This will allow up to about 40 students to observe prosected material in any one session. The vast amount ofmoney required just to increase the amount of prosection demonstrates that it is no longer possible to carry out dissection atBirmingham (and is the case for many other universities). Prosection makes more efficient use of a cadaver when compared todissection. A single cadaver when dissecting would be used by up to 5 students whereas prosection allows if necessary andentire cohort to observe the prosected cadaver. Prosection also allows students to observe more than one cadaver whereas indissection you would tend to just use a single one. Logistically prosection allows more flexibility than dissection as there is no

commitment to provide a cadaver per a certain number of students, this in fact create opportunities for cadavers to be used, forexample at Birmingham, for Special Study Modules (SSMs) and postgraduate teaching.

Also there are many more aids to teaching anatomy then merely the prosector ium; improvements over the last century in colourimages and photographs means that an anatomy text is no longer an aid to dissection but rather a central material to learn from.Plastic models are also regularly used in anatomy teaching sessions and they offer a good substitute to the real thing. Oneargument against plastic models is that they may provide a false sense of conformity in the human body; there is no doubt quitea difference between a plastic model and a prosected cadaver. Use of living models for anatomy demonstration is once againbecoming popular within teaching of anatomy. Anatomy is dynamic, for example the anatomy of the musculoskeletal system isby definition the anatomy of movement. So to provide an example of this to the audience (students) and be able to demonstratethe possible movements is beneficial. Surface landmarks that can be palpated on another individual also provide practice forfuture clinical situations. It is possible to do this on oneself and a good example of this being implemented is Integrated Biologyat the University of Berkeley; students are encouraged to introspect [10] on themselves and link what they are being taught totheir own body. This may seem like a relatively obvious idea but to formally link it into teaching of anatomy should aid memory

recall.[8]Donations of bodies have also declined in recent years with a marked decline of public confidence in the medical profession.With scandals such as Alder hay and Bristol, people are less confident that their wishes on what will happen to their body will becarried out, so instead have not donated to medical science when in the past they may have.[11] The resultant legislation fromthese scandals (namely the Human Tissue Act 2004) has tightened up the availability of resources to anatomy departments.

Another factor facing body donations is the problems arising from the outbreaks of Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (BSE) in thelate 80s and early 90s and the restrictions of handling of brain tissue that resulted from this. The exact pathology of the humanform, variant CreutzfeldtJakob disease (vCJD) has meant that patients donating their body who suffered from Alzheimers ordementia and of course vCJD means their brains cannot be handled. As the method of transmission of these diseases and thelink between them (i.e. is Alzheimers vCJD and vice versa) is not fully understood these precautions have to be taken.[12] Verysymptomatic patients are also not normally accepted for cadavers.[8] However this means that students are more limited on whatthey can dissect within the head, this is particularly a problem in medical schools where dissection is still carried out. It is less ofa problem where prosection is carried out as the specimen will have already been dissected.[edit]Conclusion

Anatomy teaching has changed considerably over the last 1000 years though it is still very much at the heart of the philosophy ofwestern medicine. Western medicine seeks to find a cause to all disease and attempt to cure it; very much cause and effect.Without a good understanding of the arrangement of the human body then this becomes somewhat challenging. Westernmedicine is in fact taking a more holistic approach today, with the psychosocial biomedical model of disease.[citation needed]However, most practicing doctors would readily adapt their thoughts and treatments if it was proven that there was a biologicalcause to disease previously thought to be idiopathic. Anatomy is often regarded as being a complete science, in that we knowwhat and where most of the body is and does with little left to discover. The recent controversies with Gunther von Hagens andpublic displays of dissection may divide opinions on what is ethical (even the legality of a public dissection) [13] The future of


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dissection may be uncertain and indeed, if pressure to obtain cadavers continues, even the few medical schools that continue todo dissection may have to halt. This hopefully however will not reduce the number of people able to benefit from a single cadaverif current prosection methods become the prevalent method of demonstrating gross anatomy.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anatomy

the Egyptians1600 B.C.EgyptBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30Worlds earliest known medical document,The Edwin Smith papyrus, describes earlyanatomical observations.Cranial sutures, meninges, externalsurface of the brain, cerebrospinal fluid,and intracranial pulsations.Could be based on 3000 B.C. !

The Greeks500 B.C.GreeceBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30

Found medical schools in Crotona, Italyand Cyrene, Africa.Studied anatomy of animals.Influence on anatomical terminology,i.e.Achilles.

Herophilos&Erasistratos400 B.C.Greece & Egypt

Back inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30

Philosophers declared that body andsoul were different.

Allowed for first dissections of humanbodies. Performed in Alexandria, Egypt.

Aristotle384 - 327 B.C.GreeceBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30

First known anatomist.Drew a distinction between nerves andtendons.Described how major arteriesbranchedout into smaller blood vessels.

King Ptolemy320 B.C.EgyptBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anatomyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anatomyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anatomy


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Established the medical school atAlexandria, Egypt.Dissections were performed on bodiesof executed prisoners - probably inpublic.

The Romans30 B.C.Italy& EgyptBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30The Roman empire conquers Egypt.Medical school at Alexandria declines inimportance.Latin becomes the internationallanguage of anatomy to this day.Example: Biceps Brachii Two Head Arm

Galen

131-200 A.D.Egypt &ItalyBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30Conclusions were based on study ofanimals.Studied in Alexandria then settled inRome.

Produced some 150-200 medicals writings.Very influential, professors would read hisbooks while his assis tants dissected acadaver.

Pope Boniface VIII1300 A.D.VaticanBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30Papal Bull:De sepulturisPut a ban on the practice of dismemberingwar casualties.Was a drain on soldiers energy.Overzealous clergy took this as a ban onany kind of human dissection.

Pope Alexander VBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30His body was allowed to be dissected.Example of how well-disposed the Churchwas towards anatomy.Or is considered an anti-pope by theVatican, chop him up who cares !?!


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Vatican1410 A.D.

Da Vinci1452-1519 A.D.ItalyBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30Very influential artist of the Renaissance.

Artists wanted to better understand theunderlying structures of the body toenhance their artwork.Da Vinci performed many dissections.Sketches provided correct proportions.

Henry VIII1491-1547 A.D.EnglandBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30

King of England, would hand over corpsesof hanged criminals to local anatomists.Public dissections in theater settingsbecame very popular.

Vesalius1543 A.D.ItalyBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30Known as the founder of modern anatomy.Described in writing his observations frompublic dissections.

His illustrator Kalkar made the mostdetailed sketches up to their time.Drawings were photographicallydetailed!

VesaliusBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30Would stack bones of cadavers forpermanent display.Named these displayed after the Greek termshoskeletos(dried up):SKELETON!Institute of Anatomy University of Basel,SwitzerlandItaly1543 A.D.

Harvey1616-1628 A.D.EnglandBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30


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Medical Doctor who was first to describe inexact detail the circulatory system,

Albinus1697-1747 A.D.GermanyBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30

Along with his illustrator Wandelaer,compiled variations in anatomy into astandard from (a.k.a. statistically averageanatomy).

Began to draw organs along with otherrelated structures (systems).

Conveys that they had an understandingoffunction (physiology).

Pirogov

1810-1881 A.D.RussiaBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30

Father of cross-sectional anatomy.

In hisAnaomiatopographica, sectionibus per corpus humanum

, he published 213cross-sectional illustrations, including oneof a pregnant woman.

Cadavers were frozen in cold winters in St.Petersburg, Russia.

Gray1858 A.D.EnglandBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30

Famous for his anatomy medical textbook for studentsGrays Anatomy.

Still revised and published to this day.

Visible HumanProject1985 - Present dayWashington D.C.Back inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 30


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In August of 1991 the National Library ofMedicine (NLM) awarded a contract to theUniversity of Colorado Health SciencesCenterto create digital cross sections of a 39year old man who had donated his body toscience after being convicted of murderandsentenced to death.

He was executed by lethal injection in Texasin1993. The Visible Man data was madeavailable in 1994.

Von Hagens1993 - Present dayGermanyBack inthe dayPresentday0 ADIPHY 3415 Human Anatomy LabPage 2 of 18

Founder of BodyWorlds exhibit and patentholder for body preservation techniqueknown as plastination.

In London, on November 20, 2002 heperformed the first public autopsy since1830.

Sparked many debates in both London andGermany.

HISTORY OF ANATOMY

Classical and medievalThe birth of biologyHuman vivisectionInfluential errors of GalenScience's siesta

Modern

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The birth of biology: 5th - 4th century BC

The Greek philosophers, voracious in their curiosity, look with interest at the range of living creatures, from the humblest plant toman himself. A Greek name is coined by a German naturalist in the early 19th century for this study of all physical aspects ofnatural life - biology, from bios (life) and logos (word or discourse). It is a subject with clear subdivisions, such as botany, zoologyor anatomy. But all are concerned with living organisms.

The first man to make a significant contribution in biology is Alcmaeon, living in Crotona in the 5th century. Crotona is famous atthe time for its Pythagorean scholars, but Alcmaeon seems not to have been of their school.


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Alcmaeon is the first scientist known to have practised dissection in his researches. His aim is not anatomical, for his interest liesin trying to find the whereabouts of human intelligence. But in the course of his researches he makes the first scientificdiscoveries in the field of anatomy.

The subsequent Greek theory, subscribed to even by Aristotle, is that the heart is the seat of intelligence. Alcmaeon reasons thatsince a blow to the head can affect the mind, in concussion, this must be where reason lies. In dissecting corpses to pursue thisidea, he observes passages linking the brain with the eyes (the optic nerves) and the back of the mouth with the ears(Eustachian tubes).

Human vivisection: c.300 BC

Early in the 3rd century BC two surgeons in Alexandria, Herophilus and Erasistratus, make the first scientific studies designed todiscover the workings of human anatomy.

The cost of their contribution to science would be considered too high in modern times (they acquire much of their informationfrom Human vivisection, the patients being convicted criminals). But Celsus, a Roman writer on medical history, energetically

justifies the suffering of the criminals as providing 'remedies for innocent people of all future ages'.

The influential errors of Galen: 2nd century AD

The newly appointed chief physician to the gladiators in Pergamum, in AD 158, is a native of the city. He is a Greek doctor by thename of Galen. The appointment gives him the opportunity to study wounds of all kinds. His knowledge of muscles enables himto warn his patients of the likely outcome of certain operations - a wise precaution recommended in Galen's Advice to doctors.

But it is Galen's dissection of apes and pigs which give him the detailed information for his medical tracts on the organs of thebody. Nearly 100 of these tracts survive. They become the basis of Galen's great reputation in medieval medicine, unchallengeduntil the anatomical work of Vesalius.


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Through his experiments Galen is able to overturn many long-held beliefs, such as the theory (first proposed by the Hippocraticschool in about 400 BC, and maintained even by the physicians of Alexandria) that the arteries contain air - carrying it to all partsof the body from the heart and the lungs. This belief is based originally on the arteries of dead animals, which appear to beempty.

Galen is able to demonstrate that living arteries contain blood. His error, which will become the established medical orthodoxy forcenturies, is to assume that the blood goes back and forth from the heart in an ebb-and-flow motion. This theory holds sway inmedical circles until the time of Harvey.

Science's siesta: 8th - 15th century AD

In the profoundly Christian centuries of the European Middle Ages the prevailing mood is not conducive to scientific enquiry. Godknows best, and so He should - since He created everything. Where practical knowledge is required, there are ancientauthorities whose conclusions are accepted without question - Ptolemy in the field of astronomy, Galen on matters anatomical.

A few untypical scholars show an interest in scientific research. The 13th-century Franciscan friar Roger Bacon is the most oftenquoted example, but his studies include alchemy and astrology as well as optics and astronomy. The practical scepticismrequired for science must await the Renaissance.

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=44&HistoryID=aa05&gtrack=pthc

HISTORY OF ANATOMY

Classical and medievalModern

Leonardo's anatomical drawingsVesalius and scientic anatomyHarvey and circulationMalpighi and microscopeLeeuwenhoek and microscopeMicroscopic anatomy

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Leonardo's anatomical drawings: AD 1489-1515

In about 1489 Leonardo da Vinci begins a series of anatomical drawings. For accuracy of observation they are far in advance ofanything previously attempted. Over the next twenty-five years he dissects about thirty human corpses, many of them at amortuary in Rome - until in 1515 the pope, Leo X, orders him to stop.

His drawings, amounting to some 750, include studies of bone structures, muscles, internal organs, the brain and even theposition of the foetus in the womb. His studies of the heart suggest that he was on the verge of discovering the concept of thecirculation of the blood.

Vesalius and the science of anatomy: AD 1533-1543

A young medical student, born in Brussels and known to history as Vesalius, attends anatomy lectures in the university of Par is.The lecturer explains human anatomy, as revealed by Galen more than 1000 years earlier, while an assistant points to theequivalent details in a dissected corpse. Often the assistant cannot find the organ as described, but invariably the corpse ratherthan Galen is held to be in error.

Vesalius decides that he will dissect corpses himself and trust to the evidence of what he finds. His approach is highlycontroversial. But his evident skill leads to his appointment in 1537 as professor of surgery and anatomy at the university ofPadua.

In 1540 Vesalius gives a public demonstration of the inaccuracies of Galen's anatomical theories, which are still the orthodoxy ofthe medical profession.

Galen did many of his experiments on apes. Vesalius now has on display - for comparison - the skeletons of a human being andof an ape.

Vesalius is able to show that in many cases Galen's observations are indeed correct for the ape, but bear little relation to theman. Clearly what is needed is a new account of human anatomy.


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Vesalius sets himself the task of providing it, illustrated in a series of dissections and drawings. He has at his disposal a method,relatively new in Europe, of ensuring accurate distribution of an image in printed form - the art of the woodcut. His studiesinaugurate the modern science of anatomy.

At Basel, in Switzerland, Vesalius publishes in 1543 his great work - De humanicorporisfabrica (The Structure of the HumanBody). There are seven volumes including numerous magnificent woodcut illustrations. The book is an immediate success,though naturally it enrages the traditionalists who follow Galen. Galen's theories have, after all, the clear merit of seniority. Theyare by now some 1400 years old.

But for those willing to look with clear eyes, the plates in Vesalius's volumes are a revelation. For the first time human beings canpeer beneath their own skins, in these strikingly clear images of what lies hidden.

Harvey and the circulation of the blood: AD 1628

A book is published in 1628 which provides one of the greatest breakthroughs in the understanding of the human body - indeedperhaps the greatest until the discovery of the structure of DNA in the 20th century.

The book consists of just fifty-two tightly argued pages. Its text is in Latin. Its title is Exercitatioanatomica demotucordisetsanguinis in animalibus ('The Anatomical Function of the Movement of the Heart and the Blood in Animals'). Its

author is William Harvey. In this book he demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt an entirely new concept. Blood, he shows,does not drift in the body in any sort of random ebb and flow. Instead it is pumped endlessly round a very precise circuit.

Until now it has been assumed that the blood in arteries and the blood in veins are different in kind. It is well known that they areof a different colour, and there have been many theories as to what each supply of blood does.

The most commonly held belief is that arterial blood carries some sort of energy connected with air to the body (not far from thetruth), and that blood in the veins distributes food from the liver (less accurate).


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By a long series of dissections (from dogs and pigs down to slugs and oysters), and by a process of logical argument, Harvey isable to prove that the body contains only a single supply of blood; and that the heart is a muscle pumping it round a circuit.

This circuit, as he can demonstrate, brings the blood up from the veins into the right ventricle of the heart; sends it from therethrough the lungs to the left ventricle of the heart; and then distributes it through the arteries back to the various regions of thebody.

After much initial opposition, Harvey's argument eventually convinces most of his contemporaries. But there are two missingingredients. His theory implies that there must be a network of tiny blood vessels bringing the blood from the arterial system tothe venous system and completing the circuit. But his dissections are not adequate to demonstrate this. It is not till four years

after his death that Marcello Malpighi observes the capillaries.

And Harvey is unable to explain why the heart should circulate the blood. That explanation will have to await the discovery ofoxygen.

Malpighi and the microscope: AD 1661

Marcello Malpighi, a lecturer in theoretical medicine at the university of Bologna, has been pioneering the use of the microscopein biology.

One evening in 1661, on a hill near Bologna, he uses the setting sun as his light source, shining it into his lens through a thinprepared section of a frog's lung. In the enlarged image it is clear that the blood is all contained within little tubes.

Malpighi thus becomes the first scientist to observe the capillaries, the tiny blood vessels in which blood circulates through flesh .They are so fine, and so numerous, that each of our bodies contains more than 100,000 kilometres of these microscopic ducts.

With their discovery, the missing link in Harvey's circulation of the blood has been found. For the capillaries are literally the linkthrough which oxygen-rich blood from the arteries first delivers its energy to the cells of the body and then finds its way back tothe veins to be returned to the heart.


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Leeuwenhoek and the microscope: AD 1674-1683

Malpighi's pioneering work with the microscope is taken further by the Dutch researcher Anton van Leeuwenhoek. Teachinghimself to grind lenses to a very high degree of accuracy and clarity (some of them providing a magnification of 300x), he uses asimple microscope with a single lens - in effect a tiny and extremely powerful magnifying glass.

With instruments of this kind he is able to observe phenomena previously too small to be seen. In 1674 he is the first scientist togive an accurate description of red blood corpuscles. In 1677 he observes and depicts spermatozoa in the semen of a dog. In1683 he provides a drawing of animalculae (or bacteria) seen in saliva and dental plaque.

His discoveries, published for the most part in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in London (though he himselflives in Delft), vividly suggest the excitement of being the first to wander with such enlarged vision among the minutiae of theanimal kingdom.

His account of the common flea follows its development from egg to the practical perfection of its adult anatomy. His researchesdemonstrate for the first time that the tiniest living things have a life cycle and generative systems like any larger creature.

Microscopic anatomy: 17th - 20th century AD

With Malphighi's discovery of the capillaries, the major anatomy of the human body is known. With Leeuwenhoek's meticulousstudy of previously invisible aspects of living material, the subject moves into a more arcane phase - that of microscopicanatomy.

The first great milestones on this new route occur in the 1830s.


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Flix Dujardin in 1835 identifies a viscous translucent substance as being common to all forms of life; it is later given the nameprotoplasm. Meanwhile others observe that living material is organized in a repeated structural form. Robert Brown discovers inplants, in 1831, the nucleus at the centre of every cell. In 1839 Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Swann give the first coherentaccount of cell formation as the building process of all life (a theme long guessed at by others, but not resolved ordemonstrated).

Yet further along this journey, deep into the centre of living matter, is the discovery in 1953 of the structure of DNA.

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Brief Anatomical Timeline

5th century B.C. work of Alcmaeon and Empodocles

460-377 B.C.Hippocrates era (Father of Medicine): little anatomical study performed limiting the knowledge of internalanatomy

384-322 B.CAristotles days: Physicians start dissecting animals to deduce basic human anatomy

ca.300 B.C.Herophilus and Erasistratus performed first human dissection

275 BCE Herophilus teaches anatomy, Alexandria, Egypt; performs dissections of human bodies.

ca. 150 Galen dissects apes, monkeys, cows, dogs; writes treatises on human anatomy.

ca. 600-1100 Knowledge of Greek anatomical treatises lost to Western Europeans, but retained in Byzantium and the Islamicworld. Islamic scholars translate Greek anatomical treatises into Arabic.

1100s-1500s Galens anatomical treatises translated from Arabic into Latin, later from the Greek originals.

13th centurySerious study of human dissections begin

1235 First European medical school founded at Salerno, Italy; human bodies are publicly dissected.

1316 MondinodeLiuzzi stages public dissections, Bologna, Italy; writes Anatomia.

1450s Moveable type invented; Gutenberg Bible printed (1455). Copperplate engraving invented.

1490 Anatomical theater opens in Padua, Italy.

1491 First illustrated printed medical book published in Venice, Johannes de Ketham, Fasciculusmedicinae.

ca. 1500-1540 Earliest printed illustrated anatomies.

1510 Leonardo da Vinci dissects human beings, makes anatomical drawings.

1514-1564Vesalius: Father of Anatomy published works, including first profusely illustrated printed anatomy, Vesalius DeHumaniCorporisFabrica(1543).

1670s-1690s Schwammerdam, Ruysch and others start making anatomical specimens and museums. Bidloo starts movementtoward greater anatomical realism. First art academies founded; anatomy is a key part of the curriculum.

1752Englands Murder Act passed

1824Article published that warned of all unclaimed bodies were to be used for dissection
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1825-26"Great Inflation": grave robbers start asking for higher prices for corpses

1832Anatomy Act: allowed use of unclaimed pauper bodies for sale and dissection

1834Poor Law Amendment Act passed

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Achillini of Bologna (1463-1512)

Eminent in the history of the science, and more distinguished than any of this age in the history of cerebral anatomy, Achillini ofBologna, the pupil and commentator of Mondino, appeared at the close of the 15th century. Though a follower of the Arabianschool, the assiduity with which he cultivated anatomy has rescued his name from the inglorious obscurity in which the Arabiandoctors have in general slumbered.

He is known in the history of anatomical discovery as the first who described the two tympanal bones, termed malleus and incus.In 1503 he showed that the tarsus consists of seven bones; he rediscovered the fornix and the infundibulum; and he wasfortunate enough to observe the course of the cerebral cavities into the inferior cornua, and to remark peculiarities to which theanatomists of a future age did not advert. He mentions the orifices of the ducts, afterwards described by Thomas Wharton (1610-

1673). He knew the ileo-caecal valve; and his description of the duodenum, ileum and colon shows that he was betteracquainted with the site and disposition of these bowels than any of his predecessors or contemporaries.

Achillini studied medicine and philosophy in Bologna, and lectured in Bologna and Padua. He was Pomponazzi's chief opponent.He was regarded as a faithful proclaimer of the doctrine of Averroes and Siger de Brabant, although in fact he made made hisown modifications to this doctrine.

The basic difference between the orthodox Averroistic doctrine and the views of Achillini concern the unity of the intellect, theobject of knowledge, the theory of the concept, the theory of the double truth, and the relation between detailed natural scienceand metaphysics.

In Quodlibeta de Intelligentiis(1494), he defended the unity of the intellect and introduced the categories of virtus and animacogitativa as pertaining to the intellect. Virtus designates a principle of unity and indestructibility, and anima cogitativa designates

a principle of plurality and destructability. One consequence of his approach was that he distinguished two objects of knowledge:the universale the object of the intellect, and the singulare the object of the senses. In the question of the universals,

Achillini wanted to connect the Aristotelian requirement that the universal must be contained in the singular with the need to savethe purity and concreteness of the universale in the act of the intellect. This led to the ambiguous formula: "[universaleest]singulare, singularitateuniversali non multiplicabili".

In his works Quaestio de potestatesyllogismi and De distinctionibus(1510) he showed his talent in formal logic. In the question ofthe double truth, Achillini took the position of dimitteretheologis (pardon the theologians), since the relation between Aristotelian-

Averroistic doctrine and the Christian faith brought about many serious difficulties in theology. Achillini also defended Averroisticastronomy and Aristotelian physics. He also presupposed an hierarchy of knowledge: natural knowledge of the particularrequires a metaphysical integration that will give a certain visio sub specie aeterni of nature (a vision of nature under the form ofeternity). In his anatomical works (De humanicorporisanatomia, 1516 and Adnotationesanatomicae, 1520) he emphasized thevalue of empirical factors but was not able to overcome the influence of the ancient anatomy which he thought to be unrivalled.

His students included PanfiloMonti, LudovicoBoccadiferro and Bacilieri.

Aristotle (384 BC 322 BC)

Amidst the general obscurity in which the early history of anatomy is involved, only two leading facts may be admitted withcertainty. The first is, that previous to the time of Aristotle there was no accurate knowledge of anatomy; and the second, that allthat was known was derived from the dissection of the lower animals only. By the appearance of Aristotle this species ofknowledge, which was hitherto acquired in a desultory and irregular manner, began to be cultivated systematically and with adefinite object; and among the services which the philosopher of Stagira rendered to mankind, one of the greatest and most
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substantial is, that he was the founder of Comparative Anatomy, and was the first to apply its facts to the elucidation of zoology.The works of this ardent and original naturalist show that his zoological knowledge was extensive and often accurate; and fromseveral of his descriptions it is impossible to doubt that they were derived from frequent personal dissection. Aristotle, who wasborn 384 years before the Christian era, or in the first year of the 99th Olympiad, was at the age of thirty-nine requested by Philipto undertake the education of his son Alexander. During this period it is said he composed several works on anatomy, which,however, are now lost. The military expedition of his royal pupil into Asia, by laying open the animal stores of that vast and little-known continent, furnished Aristotle with the means of extending his knowledge, not only of the animal tribes, but of theirstructure, and of communicating more accurate and distinct notions than were yet accessible to the world. A sum of 800 talents,and the concurrent aid of numerous intelligent assistants in Greece and Asia, were intended to facilitate his researches incomposing a system of zoological knowledge; but it has been observed that the number of instances in which he was thuscompelled to trust to the testimony of other observers led him to commit errors in description which personal observation mighthave enabled him to avoid.

The first three books of the History of Animals, a treatise consisting of ten books, and the four books on the Parts of Animals,constitute the great monument of the Aristotelian Anatomy. From these we find that Aristotle was the first who corrected theerroneous statements of Polybus, Syennesis and Diogenes regarding the blood-vessels, which they made, as we have seen, toarise from the head and brain. These he represents to be two in number, placed before the spinal column, the larger on the right,the smaller on the left, which, he also remarks, is by some called aorta (aorte), the first time we observe that this epithet occursin the history. Both he represents to arise from the heart, the larger from the largest upper cavity, the smaller or aorta from themiddle cavity, but in a different manner and forming a narrower canal. He also distinguishes the thick, firm and more tendinous

structure of the aorta from the thin and membranous structure of vein. In describing the distribution of the latter, however, heconfounds the vena cava and pulmonary artery, and, as might be expected, he confounds the ramifications of the former withthose of the arterial tubes in general. While he represents the lung to be liberally supplied with blood, he describes the brain asan organ almost destitute of this fluid. His account of the distribution of the aorta is wonderfully correct. Though he does notnotice the coeliac, and remarks that the aorta sends no direct branches to the liver and spleen, he had observed the mesenteric,the renal and the common iliac arteries. It is nevertheless singular that though he remarks particularly that the renal branches ofthe aorta go to the substance and not the pelvis (koilia) of the kidney, he appears to mistake the ureters for branches of theaorta. Of the nerves (neura) he appears to have the most confused notions. Making them arise from the heart, which he sayshas nerves (tendons) in its largest cavity, he represents the aorta to be a nervous or tendinous vein (neuroderfleps.) By and by,afterwards saying that all the articulated bones are connected by nerves, he makes them the same as ligaments.

He distinguishes the windpipe or air-holder (arteria) from the oesophagus, because it is placed before the latter, because food ordrink passing into it causes distressing cough and suffocation, and because there is no passage from the lung to the stomach.

He knew the situation and use of the epiglottis, seems to have had some indistinct notions of the larynx, represents the windpipeto be necessary to convey air to and from the lungs, and appears to have a tolerable understanding of the structure of the lungs.He repeatedly represents the heart, the shape and site of which he describes accurately, to be the origin of the blood-vessels, inopposition to those who made them descend from the head; yet, though he represents it as full of blood and the source andfountain of that fluid, and even speaks of the blood flowing from the heart to the veins, and thence to every part of the body, hesays nothing of the circular motion of the blood. The diaphragm he distinguishes by the name diazoma, and upozoma. With theliver and spleen, and the whole alimentary canal, he seems well acquainted. The several parts of the quadruple stomach of theruminating animals are distinguished and named; and he even traces the relations between the teeth and the several forms ofstomach, and the length or brevity, the simplicity or complication of the intestinal tube. Upon the same principles distinguishesthe jejunum (e nestis), or the empty portion of the small intestines in animals (to enteron lepton), the caecum(tuflontikaiogkodes), the colon (to kolon), and the sigmoid flexure (stenoteronkaieligmenon.) The modern epithet of rectum is theliteral translation of his description of the straight progress (euthu) of the bowel to the anus (proktos). He knew the nasal cavitiesand the passage from the tympanal cavity of the ear to the palate, afterwards described by B. Eustachius. He distinguishes as"partessimilares" those structures, such as bone, cartilage, vessels, sinews, blood, lymph, fat, flesh, which, not confined to onelocality, but distributed throughout the body generally, we now term the tissues or textures, whilst he applies the term"partesdissimilares" to the regions of the head, neck, trunk and extremities.

Aristotle was born at Stageira, a Greek colony on the Macedonian peninsula Chalcidice in 384 BCE. His father, Nicomachus,was court physician to King Amyntas III of Macedon. It is believed that Aristotle's ancestors held this position under various kingsof Macedonia. Aristotle was probably influenced by his father's medical knowledge; when he went to Athens at the age of 18, hewas likely already trained in the investigation of natural phenomena.


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From the ages of 18 to 37 Aristotle remained in Athens as a pupil of Plato and distinguished himself at the Academe. Therelations between Plato and Aristotle have formed the subject of various legends, many of which depict Aristotle unfavourably.No doubt there were divergences of opinion between Plato, who took his stand on sublime, idealistic principles, and Aristotle,who even at that time showed a preference for the investigation of the facts and laws of the physical world. It is also probablethat Plato suggested that Aristotle needed restraining rather than encouragement, but not that there was an open breach offriendship. In fact, Aristotle's conduct after the death of Plato, his continued association with Xenocrates and other Platonists,and his allusions in his writings to Plato's doctrines prove that while there were conflicts of opinion between Plato and Aristotle,there was no lack of cordial appreciation or mutual forbearance. Besides this, the legends that reflect Aristotle unfavourably aretraceable to the Epicureans, who were known as slanderers. If such legends were circulated widely by patristic writers such asJustin Martyr and Gregory Nazianzen, the reason lies in the exaggerated esteem Aristotle was held in by the early Christianheretics, not in any well-grounded historical tradition.

After the death of Plato (347 BCE), Aristotle went with Xenocrates to the court of Hermias, ruler of Atarneus in Asia Minor, andmarried his niece and adopted daughter, Pythia. In 344 BCE, Hermias was murdered in a rebellion, and Aristotle went with hisfamily to Mytilene. Then, one or two years later, he was summoned to his native Stageira by King Philip II of Macedon to becomethe tutor of Alexander the Great, who was then 13.

Plutarch wrote that Aristotle not only imparted to Alexander a knowledge of ethics and politics, but also of the most profoundsecrets of philosophy. We have positive proof that Alexander profited by contact with the philosopher, and that Aristotle madeprudent and beneficial use of his influence over the young prince. Due to this influence, Alexander provided Aristotle with ample

means for the acquisition of books and the pursuit of his scientific investigation, and it is quite likely that Alexander the Great'srenowned military ability can be traced, at least in part, to his relationship with Aristotle.

In about 335 BCE, Alexander departed for his Asiatic campaign, and Aristotle, who had served as an informal adviser (more orless) since Alexander ascended the Macedonian throne, returned to Athens and opened his own school of philosophy. He may,as AulusGellius says, have conducted a school of rhetoric during his former residence in Athens; but now, following Plato'sexample, he gave regular instruction in philosophy in a gymnasium dedicated to Apollo Lyceios, from which his school has cometo be known as the Lyceum. (It was also called the Peripatetic School because Aristotle preferred to discuss problems ofphilosophy with his pupils while walking up and down -- peripateo -- the shaded walks -- peripatoi -- around the gymnasium.)

During the thirteen years (335 BCE-322 BCE) which he spent as teacher of the Lyceum, Aristotle composed most of his writings.Imitating Plato, he wrote "Dialogues" in which his doctrines were expounded in somewhat popular language. He also composedthe several treatises (which will be mentioned below) on physics, metaphysics, and so forth, in which the exposition is more

didactic and the language more technical than in the "Dialogues". These writings show to what good use he put the resourcesAlexander had provided for him. They show particularly how he succeeded in bringing together the works of his predecessors inGreek philosophy, and how he pursued, either personally or through others, his investigations in the realm of naturalphenomena. Pliny claimed that Alexander placed under Aristotle's orders all the hunters, fishermen, and fowlers of the royalkingdom and all the overseers of the royal forests, lakes, ponds and cattle-ranges, and Aristotle's works on zoology make thisstatement more believeable. Aristotle was fully informed about the doctrines of his predecessors, and Strabo asserted that hewas the first to accumulate a great library.

During the last years of Aristotle's life the relations between him and Alexander the Great became very strained, owing to thedisgrace and punishment of Callisthenes whom Aristotle had recommended to Alexander. Nevertheless, Aristotle continued to beregarded at Athens as a friend of Alexander and a representative of Macedonia. Consequently, when Alexander's death becameknown in Athens, and the outbreak occurred which led to the Lamian war, Aristotle shared in the general unpopularity of theMacedonians. The charge of impiety, which had been brought against Anaxagoras and Socrates, was now, with even lessreason, brought against Aristotle. He left the city, saying (according to many ancient authorities) that he would not give the

Athenians a chance to sin a third time against philosophy. He took up residence at his country house at Chalcis, in Euboea, andthere he died the following year, 322 BCE. His death was due to a disease from which he had long suffered. The story that hisdeath was due to hemlock poisoning, as well as the legend that he threw himself into the sea "because he could not explain thetides," is without historical foundation.

Very little is known about Aristotle's personal appearance except from hostile sources. The statues and busts of Aristotle,possibly from the first years of the Peripatetic School, represent him as sharp and keen of countenance, and somewhat belowthe average height. His character (as revealed by his writings, his will (which is undoubtedly genuine), fragments of his lettersand the allusions of his unprejudiced contemporaries) was that of a high-minded, kind-hearted man, devoted to his family and his


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friends, kind to his slaves, fair to his enemies and rivals, grateful towards his benefactors. When Platonism ceased to dominatethe world of Christian speculation, and the works of Aristotle began to be studied without fear and prejudice, the personality of

Aristotle appeared to the Christian wri ters of the 13th century, as it had to the unprejudiced pagan writers of his own day, ascalm, majestic, untroubled by passion, and undimmed by any great moral defects, "the master of those who know".

Hieronymus Fabricius(1537-1619)

Hieronymus Fabricius is the Latin name by which the Italian anatomist GirolamoFabrici is better known.

Fabrici was born in Acquapendente, Italy and studied Latin, logic, philosophy, and then medicine at the University of Paduawhere he was a pupil of Gabriele Falloppio. Fabricius succeeded Falloppio as professor of anatomy in Padua at the age of 25.He later became professor of surgery, occupying both chairs for nearly 50 years. Fabricius was the teacher of Harvey, who camefrom England to study at this legendary university.

In those days Padua was under the ruling of Venice. The famous anatomical theater of Padua was erected by the Senate ofVenice due to efforts and reputation of GirolamoFabrici who also provided personal funds to the project. He not only dissectedhuman specimens but also various animal species. He is considered one of the fathers of embryology through his book entitledDe formatufoetu (Venice 1606) and his postumal work De formatione (1621). He also was one of the champions of comparativeanatomy. Fabricius was an excellent surgeon and developed new instruments and orthopaedic devices. Most of his written work

appeared relatively late in his career since he devoted most of his time to teaching, research, and patient care. He published hisanatomical observations in several volumes: De visione, voce, auditu (Venice, 1600), De venarumostiolis (1603), Demotulocalianimaliumsecundumtotum (1618) ... etc. Some historians consider that his anatomical books were the pieces of amonumental and uncompleted project that he entitled Totiusanimalisfabricaetheatrum to which he devoted many years. His Devenarumostiolis contains an accurate description of the venous valves.

His Opera Chirurgica or Operationeschirurgicae (Venice, 1619) is a comprehensive treatise of surgical pathology that was sosuccessful that was translated into various languages. Fabrici from his practice as a surgeon and physician, and from hisacademic appointment as professor of anatomy and surgery, became rich. He treated the poor at no charge. It is said that hefrequently did not charge honoraria to his very wealthy patients receiving extraordinary gifts in return. The HieronymusFabriciusabAquapendente Memorial Lecture is presented in MAM 2005 by a Padua anatomist, Prof. Gaetano Thiene, whofollowing the Padua tradition will speak on the evolution From the anatomical theatre to the double helix.

By dissection of animals, Fabricius investigated the formation of the foetus, the structure of the oesophagus, stomach andbowels, and the peculiarities of the eye, the ear and the larynx. His main claim to fame is the discovery of the membranous folds,which he names valves, in the interior of veins.

Gabriel Fallopius(1523-1562)

Latinized name of Gabriele Falloppio.The most illustrious of 16th-century Italian anatomists, who contributed greatly to earlyknowledge of the ear and of the reproductive organs.

Fallopius, was born in Modena, Italy, where he became a canon of the cathedral. He studied medicine at Ferrara, and, after aEuropean tour, became teacher of anatomy in that city. He thence removed to Pisa, and from Pisa, at the instance of Cosmo I.,grand-duke of Tuscany, to Padua, where, besides the chairs of anatomy and surgery and of botany, he held the office ofsuperintendent of the new botanical garden.

He became professor at Pisa in 1548, and at Padua in 1551, but died at Padua on the 9th of October 1562. Only one treatise byFallopius appeared during his lifetime, namely the Observationesanalomicae (Venice, 1561).

He extended Vesalius's work and corrected its details. He was the first to describe the clitoris and the tubes leading from theovary to the uterus, which he described as 'trumpets of the uterus' and which were subsequently named after him. As well as thereproductive system, he studied the anatomy of the brain and eyes. He also carried out investigations on the larynx, muscularaction, and respiration.


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He studied the general anatomy of the bones; described the internal ear better than previous anatomists, especially thetympanum and its osseous ring, the two fenestrae and their communication with the vestibule and cochlea; and gave the firstgood account of the stylo-mastoid hole and canal, of the ethmoid bone and cells, and of the lacrimal passages. In myology herectified several mistakes of Vesalius.

Fallopius was the teacher of Geronimo Fabricius.

Galen of Pergamum (ca. 130-ca. 200)

Of all the authors of antiquity, however, none possesses so just a claim to the title of anatomist as Claudius Galenus, thecelebrated physician of Pergamum, who was born about the 130th year of the Christian era, and lived under the reigns ofHadrian, the Antonines, Commodus and Severus. He was trained by his father Nicon (whose memory he embalms as aneminent mathematician, architect and astronomer) in all the learning of the day, and initiated particularly into the mysteries of the

Aristotelian philosophy. In an order somewhat whimsical he afterwards studied philosophy successively in the schools of theStoics, the Academics, the Peripatetics and the Epicureans.

When he was seventeen years of age, his father, he informs us, was admonished by a dream to devote his son to the study ofmedicine; but it was fully two years after that Galen entered on this pursuit, under the auspices of an instructor whose name hehas thought proper to conceal. Shortly after he betook himself to the study of anatomy under Satyrus, a pupil of Quintus, and ofmedicine under Stratonicus, a Hippocratic physician, and Aeschrion, an empiric. He had scarcely attained the age of twenty

when he had occasion to deplore the loss of the first and most affectionate guide of his studies; and soon after he proceeded toSmyrna to obtain the anatomical instructions of Pelops, who, though mystified by some of the errors of Hippocrates, iscommemorated by his pupil as a skilful anatomist. After this he appears to have visited various cities distinguished forphilosophical or medical teachers; and, finally, to have gone to Alexandria with the view of cultivating more accurately andintimately the study of anatomy under Heraclianus. Here he remained till his twenty-eighth year, when he regarded himself aspossessed of all the knowledge then attainable through the medium of teachers. He now returned to Pergamum to exercise theart which he had so anxiously studied, and received, in his twenty-ninth year, an unequivocal testimony of the confidence whichhis fellow-citizens reposed in his skill, by being intrusted with the treatment of the wounded gladiators; and in this capacity he issaid to have treated wounds with success which were fatal under former treatment. A seditious tumult appears to have causedhim to form the resolution of quitting Pergamum and proceeding to Rome at the age of thirty-two. Here, however, he remainedonly five years; and returning once more to Pergamum, after travelling for some time, finally settled in Rome as physician to theemperor Commodus.

The anatomical writings ascribed to Galen, which are numerous, are to be viewed not merely as the result of personal researchand information, but as the common depository of the anatomical knowledge of the day, and as combining all that he had learntfrom the several teachers under whom he successively studied with whatever personal investigation enabled him to acquire. It ison this account not always easy to distinguish what Galen had himself ascertained by personal research from that which wasknown by other anatomists. This, however, though of moment to the history of Galen as an anatomist, is of little consequence tothe science itself; and from the anatomical remains of this author a pretty just idea may be formed both of the progress and of theactual state of the science at that time.

Greek physician considered second only to Hippocrates of Cos in his importance to the development of medicine, Galenperformed extensive dissections and vivisections on animals. Although human dissections had fallen into disrepute, he alsoperformed and stressed to his students the importance of human dissections. He recommended that students practice dissectionas often as possible. He studied the muscles, spinal cord, heart, urinary system, and proved that the arteries are full of blood. Hebelieved that blood originated in the liver, and sloshed back and forth through the body, passing through the heart, where it wasmixed with air, by pores in the septum. Galen also introduced the spirit system, consisting of natural spirit or "pneuma" (air hethought was found in the veins), vital spirit (blood mixed with air he believed to found in the arteries), and animal spirit (which hebelieved to be found in the nervous system). In On the Natural Facilities, Galen minutely described his experimentation on aliving dog to investigate the bladder and flow of urine. It was Galen who first introduced the notion of experimentation tomedicine.

Galen believed everything in nature has a purpose, and that nature uses a single object for more than one purpose wheneverpossible. He maintained that "the best doctor is also a philosopher," and so advocated that medical students be well-versed inphilosophy, logic, physics, and ethics. Galen and his work On the Natural Faculties remained the authority on medicine untilVesalius in the sixteenth century, even though many of his views about human anatomy were false since he had performed his


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dissections on pigs, Barbary apes, and dogs. Galen mistakenly maintained, for instance, that humans have a five-lobed liver(which dogs do) and that the heart had only two chambers (it has four).

Albrecht von Haller (17081777)

Swiss scientist, writer, botanist and poet when he was appointed (1736) professor of anatomy, medicine, and botany at theUniversity of Gottingen. There he carried on the research in experimental physiology for which he is especially famed and onwhich he based his theory of the irritability (known today as contractility) of muscle tissue, set forth in A Dissertation on theSensible and Irritable Parts of Animals (1732). He returned (1753) to his native Bern, where he continued his research and tookpart in public affairs. Among his voluminous writings are Elementaphysiologiaecorporishumani (175766); noted bibliographies inanatomy, surgery, botany, and medicine; and a volume of poems, VersuchschweizerischerGedichte (1732).

He was born of an old Swiss family at Berne. Prevented by long-continued ill-health from taking part in boyish sports, he had themore opportunity for the development of his precocious mind. At the age of four, it is said, he used to read and expound the Bibleto his fathers servants; before he was ten he had sketched a Chaldee grammar, prepared a Greek and a Hebre w vocabulary,compiled a collection of two thousand biographies of famous men and women on the model of the great works of Bayle andMoreri, and written in Latin verse a satire on his tutor, who had warned him against a too great excursiveness. When still hardlyfifteen he was already the author of numerous metrical translations from Ovid, Horace and Virgil, as well as of original lyrics,dramas, and an epic of four thousand lines on the origin of the Swiss confederations, writings which he is said on one occasionto have rescued from a fire at the risk of his life, only, however, to burn them a little later (1729) with his own hand.

Haller's attention had been directed to the profession of medicine while he was residing in the house of a physician at Bid afterhis fathers death in 1721; and, following the choice then made, he while still a sickly and excessively shy youth went in hissixteenth year to the university of Tubingen (December 1723), where he studied under Camerarius and Duvernoy. Dissatisfiedwith his progress, he in 1725 exchanged Tubingen for Leiden, where Boerhaave was in the zenith of his fame, and where

Albinus had already begun to lecture in anatomy. At that university he graduated in May 1727, undertaking successfully in histhesis to prove that the so-called salivary duct, claimed as a recent discovery by Coschwitz, was nothing more than a blood-vessel.

Haller then visited London, making the acquaintance of Sir Hans Sloane, Cheselden, Pringle, Douglas and other scientific men;next, after a short stay in Oxford, he visited Paris, where he studied under Ledran and Winslow; and in 1728 he proceeded toBasel, where he devoted himself to the study of the higher mathematics under John Bernoulli. It was during his stay there alsothat his first great interest in botany was awakened; and, in the course of a tour (July/August, 1728), through Savoy, Baden and

several of the Swiss cantons, he began a collection of plants which was afterwards the basis of his great work on the flora ofSwitzerland. From a literary point of view the main result of this, the first of his many journeys through the Alps, was his poementitled Die Alpen, which was finished in March 1729, and appeared in the first edition (1732) of his Gedichte. This poem of 490hexameters is historically important as one of the earliest signs of the awakening appreciation of the mountains (hithertogenerally regarded as horrible monstrosities), though it is chiefly designed to contrast the simple and idyllic life of the inhabitantsof the Alps with the corrupt and decadent existence of the dwellers in the plains.

In 1729 he returned to Berne and began to practise as a physician; his best energies, however, were devoted to the botanicaland anatomical researches which rapidly gave him a European reputation, and procured for him from George II in 1736 a call tothe chair of medicine, anatomy, botany and surgery in the newly founded university of Gottingen. He became a fellow of theRoyal Society in 1743, and was ennobled in 1749.

The quantity of work achieved by Haller in the seventeen years during which he occupied his Gottingen professorship wasimmense. Apart from the ordinary work of his classes, which entailed upon him the task of newly organizing a botanical garden,an anatomical theatre and museum, an obstetrical school, and similar institutions, he carried on without interruption thoseoriginal investigations in botany and physiology, the results of which are preserved in the numerous works associated with hisname; he continued also to persevere in his youthful habit of poetical composition, while at the same time he conducted amonthly journal (the GottingischegelehrteAnzeigen), to which he is said to have contributed twelve thousand articles relating toalmost every branch of human knowledge. He also warmly interested himself in most of the religious questions, both ephemeraland permanent, of his day; and the erection of the Reformed church in Gottingen was mainly due to his unwearied energy.


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Notwithstanding all this variety of absorbing interests he never felt at home in Gottingen; his untravelled heart kept ever turningtowards his native Berne (where he had been elected a member of the great council in 1745), and in 1753 he resolved to resignhis chair and return to Switzerland.

The twenty-one years of his life which followed were largely occupied in the discharge of his duties in the minor political post of aRaihhausammann which he had obtained by lot, and in the preparation of his Bibliotheca medica, the botanical, surgical andanatomical parts of which he lived to complete; but he also found time to write the three philosophical romances Usong (1771),

Alfred (1773) and Fabius and Cato (1774),in which his views as to the respective merits of despotism, of limited monarchy and ofaristocratic republican government are fully set forth.

About 1773 the state of his health rendered necessary his entire withdrawal from public business; for some time he supported hisfailing strength by means of opium, on the use of which he communicated a paper to the Proceedings of the Gottingen RoyalSociety in 1776; the excessive use of the drug is believed, however, to have hastened his death.

Haller, who had been three times married, left eight children, the eldest of whom, Gottlieb Emanuel, attained to some distinctionas a botanist and as a writer on Swiss historical bibliography (1785-1788, 7 vols).

William Harvey (1578-1657)

William Harvey was a medical doctor who first correctly described in exact detail the circulatory system of blood being pumped

around the body by the heart. This developed the ideas of Rene Descartes who in his Description of the Human Body said thatthe arteries and veins were pipes and carried nourishment round the body. Many believe he discovered and extended earlyMuslim medicine especially the work of IbnNafis, who had laid out the principles and major arteries and veins in the 13th century.

Harvey also noted, as earlier anatomists, that fetal circulation short circuits the lungs. He demonstrated that this is because thelungs were collapsed and inactive. Harvey could not explain, however, how blood passed from the arterial to the venous system.The discovery of the connective capillaries would have to await the development of the microscope and the work of Malpighi. Hewas heavily influenced by the mechanical philosophy in his investigations of the flow of blood through the body. In fact, he used amechanical analogy with hydraulics. He could not, however, explain why the heart beats. Furthermore, Harvey used quantitativemethods to measure the capacity of the ventricles.

Harvey, oldest of seven children, was born in 1578 in Kent, England, at the halfway point of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Hewas a voracious student, earning his bachelor's degree in 1597 from Cambridge University. He continued his schooling at the

University of Padua, the foremost medical school of the time, where he studied under the esteemed scientist and surgeon,Hieronymus Fabricius. Fabricius, an ardent anatomist, had observed the one-way valves in veins, but had not figured out exactlywhat their role was. The popular belief of the day held that blood was circulated by a sort of pulsing action of the arteries.

Harvey returned to England in 1602 and married Elizabeth Browne, who was the daughter of one of the Queen's physicians.Harvey himself obtained a fellowship at the Royal College of Physicians. In 1618 he was appointed as a physician to the court ofJames I.

His research into the circulatory system and his other lines of inquiry were generously sponsored and encouraged by James I'ssuccessor, King Charles I, to whom Harvey was later appointed personal physician. By studying animals given to him by hisregal employer, Harvey eventually developed an accurate theory of how the heart and circulatory system operated. He publishedhis theories in 1628 in his famous book "On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals," which made him notorious throughoutEurope.

But William Harvey was not satisfied with being the foremost anatomist of his day. He was intrigued by everything about thebody, and at some point turned his attention to reproduction. He speculated that humans and other mammals must reproducethrough the joining of an egg and sperm. No other theory made sense. It was 200 years before a mammalian egg was finallyobserved, but Harvey's theory was so compelling and so well thought out that the world assumed he was right long before thediscovery was finally made.

Harvey remained a physician at St. Bartholomew's until 1643. He maintained his college lectureship until 1656, the year beforehis death, missing by a moment the dismantling under Cromwell of the monarchy that had supported his research throughout hislife.


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The major difference between Harvey and his predecessors, was -- methodology. Harvey determined to start out, so to speak,with a blank fact book and distinguished it from his theory book. Nothing would go down in his fact book unless tested and wouldreadily remove it if it did not bear out on a re-test. Harvey went beyond mere superficial observation; and, he took deliberatesteps so as not to be hampered by superstition or antiquated theories. Harvey was the first to adopt the scientific method for thesolution of biological problems. Every true scientist, since, has followed Harvey's approach.

Hippocrates (460 BC380 BC)

Hippocrates was a Greek physician born in 460 BC on the island of Cos, Greece. He became known as the founder of medicineand was regarded as the greatest physician of his time. He based his medical practice on observations and on the study of thehuman body. He held the belief that illness had a physical and a rational explanation. He rejected the views of his time thatconsidered illness to be caused by superstitions and by possession of evil spirits and disfavor of the gods.

Hippocrates held the belief that the body must be treated as a whole and not just a series of parts. He accurately describeddisease symptoms and was the first physician to accurately describe the symptoms of pneumonia, as well as epilepsy inchildren. He believed in the natural healing process of rest, a good diet, fresh air and cleanliness. He noted that there wereindividual differences in the severity of disease symptoms and that some individuals were better able to cope with their diseaseand illness than others. He was also the first physician that held the belief that thoughts, ideas, and feelings come from the brainand not the heart as others of him time believed.

The Hippocratic writings introduced patient confidentiality, which is still in use today. This was under the Hippocratic Oath andother treatises, which meant that people were to record their findings and methods used, to be passed down.

Other Hippocratic writings associated personality traits with the relative abundance of the four humours in the body: phlegm,yellow bile, black bile, and blood, and was a major influence on Galen and later on medieval medicine.

Hippocrates postulated that anatomy is the foundation of medicine, but at the same time he believed that one could learnsufficient anatomy by observing wounds and human bones, without the unpleasant task of dissecting corpses. In the HippocraticCorpus we find a fairly good account of bones, especially of the skull, including the sutures, and of the joints in the body. Oneshould bear in mind that Hippocrates humoral theory, which postulated that various diseases were the result of dyscrasias of fourelemental body humors, could by its very nature not have stimulated an interest in anatomy.

Hippocrates traveled throughout Greece practicing his medicine. He founded a medical school on the island of Cos, Greece andbegan teaching his ideas. He soon developed an Oath of Medical Ethics for physicians to follow. This Oath is taken byphysicians today as they begin their medical practice. He died in 377 BC. Today Hippocrates is known as the "Father ofMedicine".

Mondino de' Luzzi (1275-1326)

Mondino de' Luzzi - Italian physician who marked the revival of medical practice in the West following the Dark Ages. Arabianand Persian doctors, the greatest of whom was Avicenna, had continued the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions, but their worksremained in the framework of Greek medicine and did not produce new methodologies. Although Mondino de' Luzzi is historicallyimportant as one of the first physicians of note following the Dark Ages, his medical procedures were, in fact, a step backwards.He taught his students while seated on an elevated chair, and employed a barber surgeon to perform the actual dissections. Hebelieved in dissecting from the inside out, since internal organs rot the most quickly. In the process, he inevitably destroyed partsof the body in the process. Furthermore, Mondino de' Luzzi blindly accepted Galen's anatomy, even when a simple dissectionwould have conclusively proven him to be at odds with actual observations. He wrote a compendium of anatomy, which wasbasically a guide for understanding Galen. This represented a regression from scientific procedures, and stands out in sharpdistinction to Grosseteste's and Roger Bacon's extensive experimentation and questioning of established authorities which werebeing undertaken in approximately the same period. Unfortunately for medicine, as well as science at large, Mondino de'Luzzi'smethods became standard practice in medical schools until they were eventually replaced by the sound observational andexperimental practices of Vesalius.


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Mondino divides the body into three cavities (ventres), the upper containing the animal members, as the head, the lowercontaining the natural members, and the middle containing the spiritual members. He first describes the anatomy of the lowercavity or the abdomen, then proceeds to the middle or thoracic organs, and concludes with the upper, comprising the head andits contents and appendages. His general manner is to notice shortly the situation and shape or distribution of textures ormembranes, and then to mention the disorders to which they are subject. The peritoneum he describes under the name ofsiphac, in imitation of the Arabians, the omentum under that of zirbus, and the mesentery or eucharus as distinct from both. Inspeaking of the intestines he treats first of the rectum, then the colon, the left or sigmoid flexure of which, as well as thetransverse arch and its connection with the stomach, he particularly remarks; then the caecum or monoculus, after this the smallintestines in general under the heads of ileum and jejunum, and latterly the duodenum, making in all six bowels. The liver and itsvessels are minutely, if not accurately, examined; and the cava, under the name chilis, a corruption from the Greek koile, istrcated at length, with the emulgents and kidneys.

His anatomy of the heart is wonderfully accurate; and it is a remarkable fact, which seems to be omitted by all subsequentauthors, that his description contains the rudiments of the circulation of the blood. "Posteavero versus pulmonemestaliudorificiumvenae arterialis, quae portatsanguinemadpulmonem a corde; quia cum pulmodeserviatcordisecundummodum dictum,uteirecompenset, coreitransmittitsanguinem per hancvenam, quae vocatur vena arterialis; est vena, quiaportatsanguinem, etarterialis, quiahabetduastunicas; et habetduastunicas, primo quiavaditadmembrum quod existit in continuo motu, etsecundoquiaportatsanguinemvaldesubtilem et cholericum." The merit of these distinctions, however, he afterwards destroys byrepeating the old assertion that the left ventricle ought to contain spirit or air, which it generates from the blood. His osteology ofthe skull is erroneous. In his account of the cerebral membranes, though short, he notices the principal characters of the dura

mater. He describes shortly the lateral ventricles, with thei

history of anatomy2.fat

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